


There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover

by RisingShadows



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, love during wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23781211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: He goes to war. All she wants is for him to come home.
Relationships: William Schofield/William Schofield's Wife
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: 2nd devons writing challenges





	There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover - Vera Lynn

> “His voice, please don’t let me forget his voice.”

Her husband goes to war with a wary smile and a gentle reminder that he will come home. To her, to their daughters. He leaves with a solemn promise to write as quickly as he can, no matter if there is no news to tell. He leaves because they are at war and he has gone to help. 

They say the war will be over and she prays that he will be home soon. Her daughters miss their father and she dries their tears while holding in her own. The letters come quickly at first. But her husband has never been good at talking about nothing at all, has never been good at filling paper with meaningless words. 

She can’t decide if she wants him to write more, can’t decide if she wants letters filled with meaningless drivel if only because she can imagine it in his voice, can imagine him laughing in her ear as he tells these terrible jokes. 

He never mentions the war in them. Not in any true detail, only the occasional remark as if in passing, about a sergeant or a new batch of privates. Too young for the war front in Will’s eyes. 

She wishes she could tell him that in hers, he is right there beside them. Too young to fight and die when she needs him. Too young to leave them behind, too young to die in this war when she so desperately needs him to come  _ home _ . 

And then he sends one letter. One letter and it reads as if it is the last, it reads as if it is his final letter to her. He sends one letter and they stop entirely. She waits, she waits for the letter that will tell her what has happened and it never comes. 

She waits desperate for anything. Even if it is the one thing she fears most. And a letter come, a small slip of paper. A small slip of paper filled with Will’s handwriting and she knows she is crying, her girls tugging at the hem of her dress as she sobs. One hand pressed to her mouth, the other clutching the letter like a lifeline. 

She wishes he was here to tell her, wishes she was here and she could hear his voice. 

_ He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.  _

And then he’s home. It’s only leave and she knows, she knows, that he’ll have to leave again. But that doesn’t stop the slight nagging hope that he won’t. That he’ll wrap her in his arms when he walks through the door just as he always had when he came home and he’ll press a kiss to the top of her head and he’ll tell her that he isn’t leaving again. 

That the war is over and he is home, that she won’t have to fear the letter so many of her neighbors have received. Some for sons, others brothers. Husbands. That slip of paper that sets her heart beating as if she’s run a race. 

And then he’s home, and he wraps his arms around her waist, presses a kiss to the top of her head. Mud streaks his uniform, his hands, his face. But nothing matters when his hands come up to cup her cheeks. When he presses his forehead to hers and whispers so softly she almost doesn’t hear him. 

_ “I’m home, I’m home, I’m home.” _

A mantra that he repeats as she takes his hands in hers, as she chokes on a sob she’s been holding in since the day she watched the train roll away from the station. As she pulls him from the kitchen to the living room where their daughters play. 

His voice is different from what she remembers, lower. Softer. And there is something in his eyes, in the way he watches their girls as if he half expects them to disappear. In the flinch she catches in the corner of her eyes when a loud noise echoes from outside. 

In the flash of terror she sees when she wakes to him crying. Tears streaming down his cheeks as he runs his hand through her hair and she leans into the touch, meets his eyes with her own and stops hiding the tears she’s been holding in since the morning he came home. 

Soon he will leave again. But for that night, he holds her. She lays against his chest and he hums rhymes in her ear as she cries. He wraps her in his arms and she has missed him, has missed his voice. Has missed everything that he is, to her, to their girls. 

And then he is gone. Unshed tears bright in his eyes as he presses one last kiss to her forehead and turns to board the train and she holds in the tears until she is home. Until she can close the door and cry to her hearts content and none can judge her for not supporting her brave husband while he’s away at war. 

Her brave husband who she only wants by her side, laughing in her ear. Smirking as she tries not to laugh at his terrible jokes. 

He’s gone and her daughters are crying for their father and she shushes them as gently as she can, she guides them to the garden behind the house and she teaches them for hours. Until the tears are dried and they look to her with bright eyes and wide smiles. Until they are brimming with questions and she can smile back, soft and indulgent, and answer what questions she can. 

For a short while the letters pick back up. 

And then they drift away. Shorter and shorter until there are none at all. 

Until she can do nothing but hope, nothing but pray that he will come home to her. She hangs onto hope by the tips of her fingernails, her grip slipping with every passing day. 

She has almost given up hope when the war ends, when there is no slip of paper informing him that her husband is gone, but there is no knock on her door either. There is nothing and she does not know what that means. 

Not until arms wrap around her waist. Lips press against the top of her head and she turns to meet glittering blue eyes, blue eyes she has missed dearly and he smiles. A soft thing that lights up his face. 

“Elizabeth, El.”

She has never been so grateful to hear her own name, has never been so grateful to hear his voice. To know that he is here, that she will never have to forget it. 

William Schofield comes home. Elizabeth has never loved him more than the day he picks her up in his arms, laughing. Still dressed in a uniform streaked in mud and muck. But he is home, and that is more than enough for her. 

**Author's Note:**

> This nearly had a much sadder ambiguous ending but a more upbeat song came on and it saved Will. Thanks for that spotify.  
> Let me know what you think! I'm not sure I did the best job with the prompt since I ended with him home but Elizabeth deserves to be happy and no one can convince me otherwise.


End file.
